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Saturday, November 09, 2013

Rick Scott: Friend of Hispanics

Nancy Smith of Sunshine State News attempted to showcase Rick Scott's Hispanic outreach and smear his potential rival, Charlie Crist. The first argument went along the assinine line that Hispanics were peeved that Charlie tried to "undermine" (re: beat in an election) his two rivals in the 2010 Senate election. His two rivals being a black man (Kendrick Meeks) and an Hispanic man (Marco Rubio), which meant that trying to win the election "smacked of racial insensitivity". The article then moves on to say Rick Scott's Hispanic judicial appointments were on par with Crist, and when Scott passed over qualified Hispanics he had him some good reasons. Oh, and Scott plans to have a super-duper outreach to the millions of Hispanics in Florida.

Scott has always maintained with conviction that he is proud of Florida's Hispanic community, admires its spirit and sense of loyalty, and values its contribution.

"He's not flashy, he's quiet about it," said an aide to a Hispanic House member, "but when you're around Rick Scott enough you know he's pro-Hispanic all the way. He listens to us and he gets a lot of his ideas from us. I think his term has been like a partnership with the Hispanic community.

So there you have it. Rick Scott. Friend of Hispanics.

Case closed.

Now I'm just a blogger. I don't have the journalistic credentials like Ms. Smith. But if it pleases the Court, I would like to introduce a little balance in the article with five qualifying rebuttal points using a tool those of us in the blogging industry call "the Google". If you will allow me:

Even in our wacky, teabag conservative legislature, the state senate passed a bill that would have allowed children of undocumented aliens to obtain temporary Florida driver's licenses 36-0. The even teabaggier House passed it 115-2. It was a slam dunk.

Yet Scott Vetoed It.

He never gave a reason. It passed with such a margin that it would be overridden, and yet he vetoed it just to be a dick.

Such is the case in Florida. Of the 180,000 potential noncitizens identified for purging in 2012, less than 0.02% were actually ineligible. Nearly 60 percent of those included in the initial list were Hispanic – meanwhile, Hispanic voters make up only 13 percent of Florida’s electorate.

Only about 60 were legitimate out of Scott's initial 182,000 purges. Keep in mind millions of Floridians voted.

Scott signed a sweeping voter suppression act during his first full year as governor. Many polling places throughout South Florida were eliminated, along with early-voting days. A study by the Advancement Project found that out of all the ethnic groups, it was Hispanic voters who waited the longest. In Miami-Dade, the average time was 73 minutes. There were reports of people waiting up to EIGHT freaking hours to vote. Other highlights from the study showed that Hispanic voters were more likely to have to use a provisional ballot and almost twice as likely to have those ballots rejected.

GOP chairman of the House Judiciary committee, William Snyder, proposed a law that would allow police to harass people "suspected" of being here illegally yet specifically exempt Canadians and Western Europeans to ensure only the appropriate "brown-people" minority would be targeted. (This was the closest to saying "leave Whitey alone" and get away with it). He even admitted it wasn't about "rule of law" or "jobs" but was worried about what was happening to our country.

This law was too bigoted for even for the Florida legislature, but Rick Scott not only supported it, he embraced it and promised to sign it if it made it to his desk.

Our tax dollars went to defend what the judge correctly described as a "blatantly unconstitutional" policy to deny American citizens the right to in-state tuition unless their parents could prove legal residency. The US District Court judge even lectured the state for trying to take their rights away. But that didn't stop Rick Scott. Its not his money.

Mind you I am only bringing up points specific to the Hispanic community. The attacks on healthcare, education, the environment, the middle class, etc. etc., no doubt affect the Hispanic community as well everyone else and are reason enough alone to know that Rick Scott is not your friend. But the fact that he goes out of his way to piss on a particular minority group cannot be glossed over with token appointments and a few ads.